Support: Cities support culture to act on climate

Over the years, MAST and Manchester’s culture sector have been able to avail of different kinds of environmental support.

From Manchester’s very own Carbon Literacy Project and green procurement advice from the regional Green Growth Hub to the Creative Green Tools, Julie’s Bicycle’s online carbon calculators for cultural venues and events, and a wide range of sector resources and events provided under Arts Council England’s environmental programme.

Through C-Change the partner cities were able to learn about the different kinds of support available to the arts and culture in Manchester and build on and develop their own.

Training

Training has been a key C-Change support measure, building on the training approach developed by MAST under the Carbon Literacy Project. In 2019, sector representatives from the five partner cities did Carbon Literacy training, led by accredited trainers from HOME Manchester, and worked together to see how they could deliver something similar in their cities. By the end of 2020, about 160 people across the five cities had done sector-led climate change awareness-raising sessions. There are 12 new trainers in place in the five cities. MAST has delivered new digital training for 100 people and developed a new online learning tool. For further information on the Carbon Literacy Project model and training in the C-Change cities see here.

The cities adapted and built on the training they had done in Manchester

In Águeda, the first training included a site visit to the municipal library to see its good practice e.g. solar panels. The second included a visit to the city’s SmartLab neighbourhood demonstrating solutions which can be easily scaled up e.g. a solar bench for charging phones, and, the third a ‘repair’ workshop.
In Wrocław, the training approach was tailored for two groups: administrative and operational on the one hand and programming and production on the other. During group work, participants worked on designing creative solutions to specific challenges.
In Šibenik, Climate Collage, an interactive learning game proved a highly effective and engaging learning tool. There are now plans to roll out similar training for city high schools.

“C-Change has had a huge impact on the artists who are part of the Águeda C-Change Group and did the climate change training. They have felt empowered by what they learned through C-Change, decided to take action themselves, and pass on what they have learnt to others through their art.”

Adriana Mesquita, Department of Culture and Tourism, Municipality of Águeda

The cities are also supporting the sector to act on climate in other ways

Mantova has secured about €0.5 million so far for sector climate action and engagement activities. It developed a new audience travel calculator for cultural venues and events in the city and, working with the environmental group Ecosistemi, organised sustainable events training and developed a new sustainable events guide.
In Wrocław, the city funded energy audits for a number of cultural venues. It has started a new Green Culture grants programme and developed a new sector carbon calculator.
In Gelsenkirchen, proposals are underway to extend the city’s existing environmental funding programme to the culture sector

“We asked the group what they needed, and this led to us taking on two roles. The first was as sector ambassadors, pushing for more sustainable services and solutions for cultural events and venues, from reusable cup schemes and bio-gas buses to ‘bike-ins’, a novel approach to Covid-secure outdoor cultural events. The second was as fund-raisers. In 2019 alone, we secured over €50,000 for the sector for additional C-Change activities. Seeing the municipality’s commitment kept the group motivated.”

Emanuele Salmin, Fundraising and EU Projects Office, Municipality of Mantova

Watch: C-Change focusing on Support

Hear what Wrocław C-Change training participants have to say about the value of sector training and carbon footprinting

What we’ve learnt

As a city, listen to the sector.

Ask people what they need to find out how best to support sector climate action.

Building skills and capacity, empowering people within the sector to take action is one of the most powerful things you can do. With its resourcefulness and creativity, even a little can go a long way with the arts and culture sector.

Create lots of opportunities for peer learning and exchange.

When developing training, guides, tools etc. think about how to make them relevant to different types of cultural activities and operators and to different types of people and roles e.g. technical, operational, creative, programming, production.

Build evaluation into training and support programmes from the beginning.